Quid Pro Quo
by Pixel-0
Summary: After Sam encounters a mysterious man, he and Dean are offered a chance to make one of their greatest dreams into reality. However, there's a catch, and the boys have to decide whether or not they want to take the risk involved.
1. The Dream

**Title**: Quid Pro Quo

**Rating**: PG-13 for language, slight violence and mild sexual content

**Category**: AU Short Story

**X-Posted**: Delphi Forums Supernatural Board

**Disclaimer**: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the Warner Bros television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

* * *

_"I am sworn brother, sweet, to grim necessity, and __he and I will keep a league till death." _— _William Shakespeare_

"_What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? __Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" _—_Matthew 16:26_

* * *

_One_

Except for the steady dripping of the water from the bathroom faucet and the faint snoring that crept through the paper thin walls, the building was completely silent. Sam and Dean's faded motel room was no exception to this. Dean lay sprawled across the bed, belly down and face shoved amongst pillows so that it was a miracle he was still breathing. A half empty beer bottle sat on the rickety nightstand next to his bed, remnant of a—rare—good night. Across the small room, Sam, by way of being the younger brother, was sleeping on the pull-out bed. His feet dangled off the small frame, and if he had stretched to his full height, he would have discovered that his knees would have hit the end of the mattress.

It had been a nice, perhaps even fun, night for both of them. Although if later asked, Sam would have denied anything "fun" about it, and Dean probably could not have remembered. For the first time in a long while, the two brothers were able to simply go to a bar without a hunting reason propelling them through the doorway. Sam, as was his reclusive and passive nature, was reluctant to go inside, and he had remained seated at a small table in the corner while Dean flirted and gyrated with every supple female who came his way. There were even a few moments when Sam saw Dean out on the dance floor with a big grin stretched across his face, pointing in Sam's direction. Bitterly, Sam pulled out his laptop and focused his attention onto the glowing screen, pretending not to feel the slow burn of anger beginning. He didn't need to be the butt of Dean's jokes just because he refused to dry hump all the girls on the dance floor, while chugging down the alcohol at the same time.

Sam had sighed heavily, letting his fingers rest upon the black keyboard, and he looked out the window next to his table. In the darkened pane of the window, a man stared back at Sam with calm concentration, as if he had been watching Sam for some time. The shadowy face, pleased with Sam's notice of him, smiled maliciously. Disorientated, Sam closed his eyes and shook his head quickly. Upon opening his eyes, he saw that the window appeared normal, framing the night sky and nothing more. He reassured himself that the man was most likely some crazed drunk who was taking a leak outside the window. Ghosts were _not_ always following him, as Dean liked to believe. With this comfort, Sam returned to working on some possible ideas as to where their father could be.

He had just finished loading a rather large webpage when a familiar voice came from the blaring speakers: "And this one goes out to my little brother, Sammy." Out of nowhere, a spotlight illuminated a table not far from Sam's. There was an exasperated sigh from Dean, sending prickles of static through the speakers, "No, no, over in the corner there…the _other_ corner." And then the spotlight was right on Sam, and Dean was in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, holding the microphone to his lips and more happily drunk than Sam had ever seen him. A bottle Sam didn't recognize as mere cheap beer was cradled lazily in between his fingers. Dean was hitting the hard stuff.

Like a bad dream Sam couldn't escape, the music started, and Dean clutched the microphone closely, singing off key, "Did I ever tell you…you're my hero? You're everything I wish I could be…" Sam felt his face smolder with embarrassment under the blinding light, and slowly he rose to his feet, sliding the laptop under the seat. With the spotlight trailing him, he worked his way through the smoky crowd while small feminine hands touched him. By the time Sam reached Dean, alcohol sloshing in a bottle in one hand and microphone in the other, he was already onto the main chorus: "Because you are the wind beneath my wings!"

Despite all of his brother's asinine ways and moments to be strangled later on for, his annoying way of getting in a person's space and not leaving, and his desperate—almost pathetic—need for attention, Sam couldn't back down now. Telling Dean to shut it would only be further encouragement for his perverse, twisted ways, so Sam did the only thing he could do: Joined in.

They had left the bar, carefree and so close to the point of happiness that Sam was in disbelief that he could feel that good after Jessica's death and, more importantly, in the constant companionship of his older—pain in the ass—brother. Following the time at the bar, Dean was completely and utterly inebriated, so much to the point that Sam had to pull the car over once on the drive back to the motel room and wait for Dean to release his last meal into the tall weeds of a ditch. As Dean retched, Sam stepped out of the vehicle and stretched his legs. Leaning against the door, he gazed out over the open fields where the pale crisp grass swayed in the cool breeze. There, standing in the middle of the field was a dark figure. Although Sam was too far away to see the facial features of the man, he had a strong feeling that they were the same of the man who had watched him through the window earlier that evening. He faced the dark silhouette, swallowing his rising apprehension, while Dean coughed and spat on the opposite side of the car. Then, with one blink of his eyes to remove some dust, the shape was gone. The speed of the disappearance forced Sam to wonder if he wasn't just seeing things as a result of his low alcohol tolerance.

As Dean loaded himself back into the car, Sam wrinkled his nose, but knew that if he complained, he'd hear about it when Dean was sober. Instead, he rolled down the window, passed Dean the box of tissues, and continued driving. Dean and his alcohol. Yet another one of Dean's less than endearing qualities.

Fortunately, they made it back to the motel without too much of a hassle from either driver or passenger. There, back in their small room, Dean staggered to his bed and collapsed like a bag of sand, never moving for the rest of the night. On no account, Sam would admit to the worry he felt until he heard Dean's low and even breathing. After reassuring himself that Dean wouldn't enter an alcohol induced coma, he took a shower, changed into a pair of faded pajamas and double checked all the locks through their room. Everything was secure enough to keep out any human predator, but Sam knew that physical locks would not limit a ghost's arrival. With that in mind, using equipment found in Dean's bag, he created spiritual barriers around Dean's bed and his own, hoping to deter any spiritual being from visiting them in the middle of the night. Sighing heavily, Sam clambered into the rollaway cot, which squeaked in protest as he applied his full weight. Soon, he was asleep, one of the few times of the day that he could feel completely at peace.

Sam's time for peace that night was short lived as the dreams came and went without real warning or cause. After a generally easygoing night at the bar, the last thing he would have expected was more nightmares. But, they came nonetheless. Soon, he was twitching and muttering in his sleep. Dean, of course, did not notice.

However, when Sam shot straight up in bed with a strangled scream, causing Dean to jerk up, fall out of his own bed and hit his head on the nightstand on the way down, he did notice. He cursed a string of angry expletives under his breath, and he tried to climb to his feet. This act took a moment or two, as he was disorientated from the horrid combination of just waking up, hitting himself in the head, and the amount of alcohol he had earlier consumed. Eventually, though, he got to a standing position and staggered over to the screaming Sam. Although Sam was up and sitting, he still had his eyes closed while he clawed fervently at something in the air. Swiftly, Dean smacked him across the face as hard as he could manage. Silence so loud that Sam's ears hurt immediately followed, but there was a momentary pause before he opened his eyes, looked up at Dean standing over him, and raised his hand to the burning on his face.

"What the _hell_ was that for?" Sam snapped, realizing that there would probably be a bruise on his face the next morning.

"You're waking up the whole god_damn_ place with your screaming. Woke _me_ up, dammit it all…" Dean growled as he returned back to his bed. "God…"

Sam furrowed his brow, confused, and watched as Dean wrestled with the sheets and pillows. In his fall out of bed, the blankets were twisted into knots, and the pillows were scattered on the floor. Tired and irritated, Dean was none too appreciative on having to rearrange himself back into a comfortable sleeping position again.

Remaining quiet, Sam mentally reviewed the dream, feeling the frigid grip of a powerful creature bearing a macabre similarity to the man who had visited him throughout that night. The entire nightmare had been one of the most intoxicating Sam had ever experienced. Even awake in the palely lit motel room, he was unable to discern the dream from reality. He knew how controlling and confusing dreams could be for others, but ever since he was young, he had the ability to awake from his dreams and ease himself back to sleep with the knowledge that the dream was "just a dream."

Now he could not.

There was a malevolence tugging on him that this dream—this event he had been witness to—would not dissipate into the crevices of his brain as easily as he would have preferred.

"Dean?"

There was a faint grunt of acknowledgement from the lump of blankets across the room.

"Dean, I had a dream…and there's this man..."

Still lying down, Dean raised a hand in the air and spun his index finger in a circular manner. Sam knew he wanted to sleep, but Dean needed to hear about this one.

"No, Dean, really. I've got to talk to you about it. I…I think it's important."

This time, hand still raised, Dean flashed Sam a proper middle finger salute and verbally told Sam where he could put his dreams for the time being. Dean flopped over onto his stomach again, slapped the pillows over his head and was soon heard breathing smoothly, lulled back into an easy sleep.

Alert and aggravated, Sam padded to the bathroom, where he ran the faucet until the water was cold. He cupped the cool liquid in his hands and splashed it onto his face, running his fingers over his shaggy brown hair. Gripping the edge of the chipped porcelain sink, he stared at his reflection in the mirror, forcing himself back to reality. The side of his face where Dean had hit him was a bright red and beginning to swell. As Sam lifted his fingers to the hot, tender flesh, he saw the man with shadows for a face standing behind him, whispering words from the darkness.

Sam whipped around, chest heaving and nerves twisting. There was nothing in the room with him. Nothing besides his own terror. He reminded himself not to be afraid in front of Dean because it was an emotion that, quite frankly, did not exist in Dean's world. Dean's primary emotions ranged between hungry, drunk, horny and angry. Other than that, he might as well be sleeping or dead. Fear was not something comprehended in either himself or anyone else that Dean knew. Now, though, alone in the bathroom, Sam watched his hands tremble with fright, and he wondered how long he could hide this from his older brother.

To calm his demanding nerves, Sam returned to the sleeping area and pulled out his laptop from underneath the bed. The gentle glow of the flat screen relaxed him slightly, as did the soft whirring of the internal fan. As the bottom of the laptop grew warm against his legs, he began to record as much of the dream as he could remember. At first, his fingers shook and trembled over the keys, and the words came out strange and foreign. He continued typing, though, until his fingers were able to restore the familiar motions of the keyboard that he had perfected through thousands of college essays. He wrote of the man in the bar's window, in the field, in the bathroom, and most importantly in his dreams. He wrote all the details of the man, how strange he seemed, how human, but most importantly, how ghostly. Sam wrote until his fingers were sore and cramping.

The sun was beginning to rise in the distance, a faint blush on the horizon peeking through the parted blinds. Sam yawned and carefully reread what he had written. Swallowing the large lump that rose in the back of his throat, he prayed that what he had just recorded was only a figment of the night and nothing more. If not, and if this dream—and this man—burst out into the real world and sabotaged the life the two brothers were building, Sam knew it would destroy both Dean and him.


	2. The Man

_Two_

Hours later, the two brothers were sitting in a small restaurant a few miles from the motel. Morning sunlight crawled through the windows, warming Dean's skin and hurting his eyes. He gingerly sipped a mug of blistering hot black coffee in an attempt to quell the headache that was ripping his skull apart at the sutures. There was a deep purple lump on the side of his head where he had fallen against the nightstand, and his eyes were pinched and rimmed in black circles. Throughout the shared breakfast, he muttered angry phrases to his coffee and the back of Sam's computer.

Sam had placed the laptop on the table in front of him, barely touching the eggs and sausage he had ordered. The waitress had not even refilled his cup of orange juice—in stark contrast to Dean's three coffee refills. Dean briefly wondered why the kitchen staff just didn't bring the entire pot out to him after that.

The two men had said nothing to the other since the previous night, and when Sam broke the silence, Dean was genuinely surprised. He knew Sam would be the first one to talk, but he was amazed Sam had grown the balls to talk so early.

"Look, Dean, about last night."

"Yeah?"

"I know…" Sam paused to clear his throat and started again, this time sounding more confident. "I know you're going to think I'm crazy—"

"Already do," Dean interrupted, picking up a piece of bacon with his fingers and ripping off the end with his teeth. "Any other brilliant developments, Spock?" He was tired and hurting, and it was Sam's fault. The hangover wasn't Sam's fault, but the screaming in the middle of the night, which caused him to not only wake up, but fall out of bed, _was_ Sam's fault, so he directed his anger towards Sam. Blaming the hot girls who bought him drinks at the bar wasn't going to do any good now that they were long gone.

"You remember how I told you about the dream last night?"

"You had a dream last night?"

"Yes," Sam replied, sounding slightly irritated.

"Really?" Dean took a long drink of his coffee. The temperature was slightly cooler so that he didn't scald the tip of his tongue right off. The caffeinated drink did taste faintly bitter, however, and Dean figured they were probably getting to the bottom of the pot he had been drinking all morning. "Was this before or after the redhead? Because after that, I don't remember too much." He forced a grin, reminiscent of his drunken kisses and confused groping, exhaling strong coffee breath in Sam's direction.

"After," Sam sighed, and he picked up his fork to eat something. He paused, then reconsidered and put the fork back down with a soft clink on the blue china dish. "I had a really bad dream last night, and I think it might be more than 'just a dream.' There's also this man who's been following me around."

"Huh."

"I know you don't care, and you're pissed because of last night—"

"You _are_ smart enough for college after all."

"—but for once, just listen to me, _okay_?" Sam had raised his voice, something unusual for him, and Dean actually looked up from his own food. There was a pause, as Sam began to feel embarrassed for nearly yelling in the small, nearly empty, restaurant like that, and he diverted his eyes back to the laptop.

"Well you gonna tell me this dream or not? Your food's getting cold. So start yappin' or else I'm going to eat it, dude." Dean didn't like to see Sam get so unstrung. Just wasn't in his nature, as the passive, brooding younger brother. Not that Dean was too concerned with his younger brother's emotional state too much. After all, Sam had lived such a cozy life in college, while _he_ was out running around and hunting with Dad.

Sam should be expected to hurt a little bit; Dean had done it all his life.

"I saw this guy a few times yesterday, too. I didn't think anything too much of it until later that night. He was also in my dream, and that's when I realized that he wasn't human, yet he wasn't a spirit."

"A human body inhabited by a spirit?" Dean suggested. He wasn't going to apologize for his behavior earlier, but he decided the best way to move on was to pretend as if he hadn't acted like a complete ass to Sam. The waitress came to check on the boys again with a smile. She was an older lady, too old for Dean's preferences, but she nodded and smiled as if her customers always talked about bodies being inhabited by spirits. Dean watched her face blanch as she moved away from their table and closer to her normal customers, who discussed fishing trips and clothes shopping.

"No, no, he wasn't flesh, well not in the human sense, at all. But, like with ghosts, we can usually tell with them, y'know? In the dream, I got, for the first time just how, I don't know, powerful and evil he is."

"The two most overused words in our job," Dean smiled faintly, running a finger along the inside corner of his mouth. "Dammit, Sammy, we need a new vocabulary list."

"You really need to stop calling me that."

"What? 'Dammit'?"

"You know what I mean."

"Do I? I think you may have to clarify."

"I'm not even going to argue about this with you."

"Right, of course, anything you say, Sammy."

Sam sighed. "Anyway, in the dream, this guy told me that he could make us a deal. He didn't say what for and what about, just that when he came to us, he knew that we wouldn't be able to refuse. Either way, it would cost us something that we didn't want to readily pay."

"Then we refuse. Simple as that. We refuse and blast his ghostly ass out of this world."

"I don't think we'll be able to. He seems so much more intelligent than anything we've ever dealt with before. He's purposefully playing games with me, showing himself and then disappearing before I get to close…In the dream, he was showing me this other…place. I don't know where it was or if it's even real. There were a lot of people screaming and crying there, and we were there with him and these people."

Dean waited after Sam finished the last sentence, believing that there might be more to the story. "That's it?" he asked incredulously. "Doesn't sound like something to piss your pants over. My God, my brother's such a prick."

Sam pursed his lips in anger and slight embarrassment, and for a quick moment, Dean was satisfied that he'd gotten through Sam's rigid outer core for an emotional response—even if it was a negative one. Sam was far too lax and nonchalant for Dean's liking the majority of the time. Although this kept them safe, Dean didn't want to admit it.

Sam shook his head, disagreeing with Dean's comment. "It wasn't so simple. This guy, Dean, I really think he's after us and wants us."

"Uh-huh," Dean said dubiously, looking outside the window. The Impala was one of the few cars sitting in the parking lot at the awkward time between the breakfast and lunch rush at the restaurant, but it gave them privacy, which Sam needed and Dean—for once—wanted. Especially with Sam talking about nonsense. He sighed and turned back to Sam after a moment of thinking. "So, from what I'm understanding, there's something 'powerful and evil' after us that wants to bargain with us, and you're the special chosen one he's shown himself to?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"What kind of deal exactly are we talkin'? One night Cinderella, become a princess deal? Or have a sex change operation, stay a princess forever deal?"

"I don't know. I couldn't understand him. Something that he could give us exactly what we wanted."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Look, Sam, I know you've had 'wild prediction dreams' before," he said, waving his hands about over-dramatically, "but this just doesn't make any sense."

"I know, I know…that's why I'm so worried. It's like nothing we've ever encountered. I think…I really think this one's going to get the better of us…But still, Dean, you have to admit, him showing up all the time is a bit abnormal."

"Maybe. Or, we can say that you were drinking too much last night."

"Dean…"

"Right, bad assumption. You're going to make a recovering alcoholic a very good boy toy some day, Sammy, y'know? Let's say, though, there is a guy after you and that he is real—in whatever sense—and he wants something. What are we supposed to do about it?"

Sam sighed. "Wait, I guess."

"Exactly, unless you've already started to do research on your precious little computer over there."

"You know me too well."

Dean shook his head as the waitress approached the table to hand them their bill. She gave a fake smile towards the two boys, and a wish that she hoped they had enjoyed their meals. Dean looked at her, realizing that even with the age difference, she might not be a bad lay, and then laughed in the back of his throat at his own little ways. He pulled out a wad of cash after glancing at the bill, slid the total over to Sam, who removed his wallet to pay his half. Just as Dean had started to thumb through his mess of cash, a distinctly male voice, rich and luminous, with an undistinguishable European accent spoke: "Hello, gentlemen."

Dean dropped his money and whipped to his left where a man casually sat next to him. The man was dressed in a formal black business suit with a white undershirt trimmed in gold cufflinks and silk black tie. He wore a neatly trimmed goatee around his mouth, and the black hair on his head was short and glistening. Intertwining his fingers on the table made the numerous thick gold bands encrusted with glittering gems on the man's fingers visible. As he smiled at the two boys, his teeth were noticed to be as white as his shirt, and the grin was deep and dark.

"Not talking this morning, are we?" the man said, glancing from Dean, who had pressed himself up against the opposite wall, furthest away from the man in his seat, to Sam across the table. "Ah, well, I would have assumed as such. A pity, too." He smiled at Dean with that secretive smile, and he reached out and stroked Dean's cheek with the back of his fingers. His touch was as warm as any flesh and blood man's. "I had heard you were quite the talker, after all."

Dean instantly regretted he didn't carry any weapons on him for times like this. His guns loaded with silver bullets and rock salt, holy water, and anything else he might have wanted were sitting right outside the window—behind a panel of tall glass. A nerve began twitching under his cheek, and he glanced over to Sam, who had gone completely pale. Sam looked as if he was going to vomit, seeing what must have been the man in his dream come to life.

The man gave a close-lipped smile, then raised his eyebrows in the direction of Dean's half empty coffee mug and nodded curtly. "Getting low there, aren't you? Care for a refill?"

"You're not real," Dean answered. "We're not afraid of you, so get the hell out of here."

The man gave an exaggerated frown. "Now that's not very polite, is it?" He paused, watching Dean carefully crawl out of his skin. "Very well then. Black coffee it is." He picked up the mug in one hand, placed his opposite hand on the top of the mug, waited a moment and then handed a full steaming cup of coffee back to Dean. "Go on, drink it," he urged. "Slightly stronger than what they serve here, but it'll wake you up, I can guarantee that."

The man now turned his attention to Sam, who would have ran out of the restaurant were it not for Dean being trapped by the man. "And your laptop. Fascinating little invention by you humans, isn't it? Positively delightful, really. Not that I'm in need of one, but let's see that anyway." With a gesture of his long pale fingers, the laptop slid slowly across the table to the man, who narrowed his dark eyes at the screen. "Recording your encounters with 'this man' and your dream, too? Ah, it must have been a very interesting dream. I think you left a couple parts out, though. Here, let me fill them in for you." Another small twitch of his fingers and the few sentences on Sam's meager document expanded swiftly into paragraphs. The man smiled that same proud, tight-lipped smile and slid the laptop back over to Sam without touching the machine. "There, read it, I think you'll find it most satisfactory."

There was a pause as Sam read it, then glimpsed at Dean, who was reaching inside his pocket for his car keys. Dean never took his eyes off the man, who was watching Dean at the same time, but Sam knew what Dean was thinking without eye contact. Both of the boys tensed their muscles to the greatest that they could, prepared to run like they never had. It was wrong to turn his back on the ghost, Dean knew, but this was a special case, after all, because he had no weapons to hold out in front of him.

Immediately, without any obvious signs, Sam flew to his feet and dashed down the aisle between the restaurant booths. Dean, with some difficultly, leaped onto the table, smashing the plates and coffee cups under his large boots, and hurled himself off the slab before starting after Sam.

"Run, dammit, run!" Dean bellowed as Sam glanced behind him to Dean. There was sweat dripping down the valley between Dean's shoulder blades, and his breath caught in his throat as he gasped for air. He realized with a sudden horror that it wasn't lack of exercise that was slowing his breathing, but the wrenching fear that Sammy had been right after all, and Dean didn't want to wait to see what would happen.

Sam burst out the restaurant entrance, cracking the glass in his hurry as the door slammed up against the opposite wall, and they both made a mad dash for the car. Just as Dean had placed his hand on the door handle, the vehicle disappeared beneath his fingers like air. "What the hell!" Dean wailed. "My car!"

In the doorway of the restaurant with its screaming customers fleeing the building, the mysterious man walked slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. As he exited the restaurant, the structure began to fade away, and the people dropped to the ground, turning to dust, which left the boys and the man standing in the middle of a vastly empty field. Slowly, the man walked towards them, head slightly bent, and black shoes glistening under a sun Dean could not see. Just as the man was not less than a couple yards away, Dean and Sam shot away again, not knowing where to run, but knowing that running was better than facing this…_thing_ without any weapons. They hadn't gotten more than a few steps away, when they were suddenly jerked back as if someone had grabbed onto the edge of their coats.

Sam screamed, trying to fight the invisible force pulling him backwards, and Dean began to shake himself out of his coat, only to discover that he was literally stuck inside the fabric. They were then roughly thrown onto the ground, where the man loomed above them, hands still clasped behind his back, never having physically touched the two brothers. There was an angry scowl on his face, and Dean silently thought, _Oh shit, he killed my car, now he's after me._

"You've upset me very much," the man said slowly, articulating each word carefully in that full opulent voice of his. "And I'm very tired of your petty little games. You cannot destroy me, and you cannot run from me, so I believe, boys," he continued, forcing a smile that no longer was the least bit friendly, "you have no choice but to listen to me."


	3. The Deal

_Three_

"Oh now, I don't mean to be cruel," the man was saying as he reclined in an overstuffed armchair opposite the two boys, who were crammed together on a small loveseat. The black leather furniture was sitting in the middle of the field where the restaurant, cars, and the town had once stood. "Only that I come all the way here to talk to the both of you, and you treat me so horribly. Such a pity, really." He shook his head, eyes downcast upon the glittering gems around his fingers. "Drink?" He looked from Sam to Dean. "No? Well, then I'll drink alone." He snapped his fingers and a small crystal glass filled with a clear liquid appeared instantly in his hands.

"You've been following me," Sam blurted out, surprising himself and Dean. Looking at this creature that was so much like a man but so much more, he thought he had been completely silenced through the bone.

"Very astute, aren't you? Yes, I have been following you. Both of you, really, but your older brother here was far too intoxicated to have noticed my presence the way you did."

"It's called 'living'," Dean muttered.

Sam glanced over at Dean before speaking. "Why? Why follow us?"

"You've caught my attention, and for me to notice mere mortals where I come from, well, it's an honor, I should say. I've known you were 'hunters' for quite some time, but I had to come and see for myself if you were really as valiant and daring as everyone has said you are." Slowly, the man took a small sip of his drink and ceased talking, as if the brothers were supposed to be completely satisfied with the vague answer he had just given them.

"Who are you?" Dean asked.

"Ah, so you speak?" The man smiled faintly. "Perhaps the better question you should be asking is, '_What_ are you'? Am I correct? Your primitive minds cannot seem to process what I really am. Perhaps if you challenged all your theories, you would accept my identity more readily than if I were to merely tell you. Here, have your car back and all of its trivial weapons." Again another bored wave of the hand, and the Impala crashed down, dropped clear out of the heavens with an explosion of thunder a little less than ten yards away. Dean jumped his own height off the couch, falling on top of Sam, who hissed a curse through his clenched teeth. "Now go on, open the trunk, I insist."

Dean hesitated and pushed himself off Sam. The car seemed to be visibly undamaged, fortunately, but Sam knew that when dealing with ghosts—especially one as powerful as this—there could always be more than met the eye. Slowly the two brothers walked to the trunk, as Dean pulled out his keys and popped the latch. For a brief moment, Sam expected to find rotting corpses, slimy bones, or hell, even spiders, believing that the car was only an image of Dean's precious Impala, and the man resting in the chair, peacefully drinking a likely fatal beverage had stuffed the fake car with typical ghost tricks. But, when the lid popped open, the last thing Sam expected to see was the familiar worn interior with the secret compartment below filled with Dean's weapons.

Sam watched as Dean tenderly ran his fingers over one of the sleek guns loaded with silver bullets Dean himself had melted into the deadly little pellets. Knowing what they were preparing to commit, Sam forced himself to expel all thoughts of his future actions in case the monster could read minds. He concentrated on pretending to be shocked, and he visualized himself preparing to cry.

Without warning, Dean whipped around, gun held out in front of him, and pointed it at the man. "Eat shit, bitch!" he screamed, and he fired. Sam raised his hands to his eyes, his own gun still held in his hand, leaving the massacre to Dean. The blast of the gun was deafening, and even though Sam knew it was not possible for an echo to exist in such a barren land, reverberations of the gunshots rolled over each other in the distance nonetheless.

Dean was the better marksman of the two brothers. He was better than most wildlife hunters, and there was rarely a time he ever missed his target. This event was no different, as the man sitting in the chair had a round of bullet holes through his chest. They were small holes, and the fabric of the man's clothes was charred around the edges of each cavity, as if someone had pressed the burning end of the cigarette to his chest. Sam waited, holding his breath, wanting the man to dissipate, wanting the man to scream in rage, wanting the man to do anything but touch his spidery fingers to the openings in his chest in that calm and dreamlike manner.

"Why, I believe you shot me." Then the man reached into his chest, just as one would reach into a body to perform deep surgery and plucked out the bullets. He held his open hand out to the boys, where the silver bullets, glittering like new, set in his palm. "Now what do you wish to try? Holy water? Voodoo? Finding my corpse and burning it? Really, what _do_ you wish to do?"

"This isn't possible," Sam said out of nowhere. His voice sounded hollow and faint to him suddenly. Although equally as panicked as Dean, he was nevertheless the more rational of the two at the time being.

"Of course it's possible. You cannot kill a deity."

"A deity?" Sam echoed. "You mean a _god_?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. Although with that Christianity nonsense these days, it's difficult to get anywhere with you mortals calling yourself a 'god.' They, of course, automatically assume you're with 'God,' which is completely different than what I am. No affiliation whatsoever." He shook his head a bit dramatically, as if the allowance to express his displeasure overwhelmed him.

"Then what damned 'deity' are you?" Dean growled, approaching the man, but keeping his safe distance. He had replaced his gun with a different loaded one, if only for the mental security of carrying a weapon.

"The Greeks called me 'Hades,' and the Egyptians favored the name of 'Osiris.' Not that I'm fond of either of those names now."

"God of the Underworld," Sam whispered under his breath.

"God of the what-world?" Dean incredulously echoed. "You've got to be shitting me. There's no such thing. Gods." He snorted in disgust. "You're just some arrogant, narcissistic ghost."

"Coming from you, I'm surprised," the man said, a genuinely confused look on his face. "After all, Dean, I'd thought you seen everything there was to see in this pitiful excuse of a world. I truly believed you would be the more accepting of you two."

"I don't accept bullshit."

"What are you here for?" Sam asked, interrupting. This man, this supposed deity, fascinated Sam. It was a strange sort of attraction, a line between the desire to study the creature and to run away screaming. Never before had Sam witnessed something so powerful it could destroy and create matter, a law of the world no ghost could defy.

"I'm here to make a deal with you. Both of you."

"You can't make a deal," Dean protested. "You have nothing we would want."

"Oh, but I do."

"C'mon, Sam, let's get going. The 'Big O' here seems to think we'll fall for as much of his bullshit as he has." Dean began to close the trunk lid with Sam close by. They didn't know where to drive, but driving was better than sitting and talking.

"Haven't you ever wondered, Mr. Winchester," the man continued nonchalantly from his seat, "why the god of the underworld would come to see _you_? It's not as if I'm a bored deity. I have plenty to do without fraternizing with mortals."

"Dean, shouldn't we see what he wants?" Sam said under his breath as Dean strapped a large hunting knife to his belt.

"Keep working and ignore the son of a bitch," Dean shot back angrily.

"In case you're not familiar with the god of the underworld, he has unlimited control to the souls of the dead, which in your case may be very helpful. You see boys, I can give you something you want. Something that would make your lives a whole lot sweeter. I can give you your mother."


	4. The Brother

_Four_

"You son of a bitch!" Dean bellowed and turned back around, ready to chop off the bastard of a ghost's head. If silver bullets could make holes, it would be interesting to see the man talk without his head attached. Except when Dean reached the upholstered chair, he was launched into the air and tossed multiple body length's away. His knives toppled out of his hands, and Sam leapt from the couch, assuming that the blades had impaled Dean in his fall. The dark man rose to his feet in one smooth motion, as the chair disappeared beneath him and the glass in his hand vanished into thin air.

"You were saying?" he asked, eyeing Dean, who unhurt, was rising to his feet.

"Don't you dare talk about our mother, you asshole!" There was spittle flying from Dean's lips as he rose to his feet and approached the deity, finger pointed towards the chest where he had fired a deadly round of bullets only moments before.

"If you can actually believe me for one moment, I'm not here to bring you further pain in your mortal lives. I'm here to relieve it. I want to help you."

"Bullshit."

The man sighed, slowly stroking his chin like an exasperated parent talking with a stubborn child before crossing his hands behind his back. "You've returned a large number of ghosts, essentially sending the souls back to the underworld. This assists me a great deal, you see, because their souls are supposed to come to my world, and if they're not with me, then there is a problem. You boys are helping me with that, and I want to help you by giving you something that I know means very much to you."

"It's not possible," Sam whispered. His face was blanched, and although he carried the same weapons as Dean, he was not nearly as threatening. Dean pulled out the guns from his belt and clutched them with white knuckles, wiping away the sweat on his brow and spit on his lips. Sam cradled his weapons with loose fingers, trembling in the knees and in the heart.

"Oh, but it is. Very possible indeed. It is not something that is frequently executed, but it's not a common occupation either, to do what you boys do."

"So, all we have to do is just, what, agree and you'll send Mom back?" Sam asked.

"Not quite. You see, there is a small catch."

"How small?" Dean snapped. He wanted the man dead, he wanted to do anything but stand there like a scared child and listen to the man ramble and speak of their mother. But, the idea of having his mother back was so tantalizingly rich he could not leave.

Dean had been gut punched for his wildest dreams.

"Small as in I cannot allow souls wander out the underworld without a proper trade. I release one soul, then I'm short, and if I'm short, that disrupts the entire balance as you know it of life and death. I cannot magically start decreasing the number of souls in my world. It just doesn't happen. What I _can_ do—and here's the clincher—is accept one of you and allow your mom to return to this world, free."

"What will happen to the other brother, though?" Sam questioned.

"The one that goes with me?"

"Yes," Dean clarified, understanding Sam's thoughts. "The one that gets to play with you in happy Hell-land."

The man shrugged, a small simplistic motion that seemed not to be affiliated with the idea of a human's life. "He will cease to exist in this world. In my realm, he'll merely be a lost soul, bound forever to me."

"He can never come back then?" Sam said, brushing a lock of brown hair out of his eyes.

"Highly unlikely. To term it in your modern language: This isn't a 'try it and see how you like it' deal. It's a 'now or never do it again' deal."

"Will he be in pain, the brother that goes with you?" Dean asked, his voice slow and drugged now. His eyes were distant, brooding and comprehending, and his weapons were dangling between his fingers instead of gripped with burning joints.

"No, it's a very lucid state of existence. He will not realize he is dead once he comes with me. His thoughts will simply end, and his soul will wander the underworld for eternity, relieving the moments of his life. Pain? You'll be dead, boy."

"And Mom?" Dean said. "Will _she_ be in pain?"

"She'll appear here, same as the day she left. No scars, no blood, just the radiant beauty that was your mother. It will be as if she never left."

Dean swallowed hard. There were tears welling in the backs of his eyes, and he was standing next to Sam's crib again, the heat of the flames pressing hot against his chubby cheeks. His father was yelling at him, and Sam was in Dean's young arms. "I think we need some time."

"You don't have time. I will only come for you this once, and if you do not answer me now, you will never be asked again. I am a just deity, but I am not a patient one. You know what you desire, what you both desire. You've known since the day she died what you would sacrifice to have her back, and now you can. I can see it in you. So, make your decision."

Sam turned to Dean, looking down at him, hard to believe that his older, cocky brother was more placid than him for once. "Let me go. You knew Mom longer than I did. You miss her more than me." Dean shook his head weakly, refusing Sam's words. He rubbed at the corner of his bloodshot eyes with the edge of his hand. Sam continued, "No, don't act like this. You should be the one to be able to spend time with Mom. I went off and left the family. I don't belong here anyway."

Dean, as if suddenly realizing that his younger brother would be going where no man could touch him, inhaled sharply and retracted his emotions. Fiercely, he clutched Sam by the shoulders and looked him directly in the eye. He was struggling not to cry. "No, you belong here just as much as I do, so don't you _dare _start pissing out on me now, Sammy, all right? You never knew Mom. You should be able to. If I go, you'll know Mom now because you never did."

"Stop talking like this!" Sam said, panicked and wild-eyed. He didn't want to hear this; he didn't want to hear that Dean was going to leave him. Suddenly, watching Dean, who he thought was infallible, begin to break down, Sam felt his own strength start to give way. His heart sank in his chest, pressing a heavy weight against his lungs, so that when he spoke, his tone was rasped and harsh. "I'm not going to let you go, okay? Dammit, Dean, you're the only family I've got. Let me go, let me give you Mom back."

"So what, _you're_ going to be the one to leave?"

"Yes, you have Dad, and you'll have Mom. You leave me behind with them, I don't even _know_ them! You'll be putting me with a bunch of strangers!"

"No! They're your _family, _goddammitand they loved you!" Dean exclaimed. "There's no way in hell I'm going to let you go off to god knows where, thinking you can get Mom back. You deserve to have time with her. You deserve to have the family you never got. I at least got it for a little bit, you never got it at all. You deserve it now, more than ever, Sammy."

They continued arguing until both became silent. There was no right or wrong answer, no test that would prove who should go and who should stay behind. Neither of them wanted to go for themselves; they wanted instead to go for the other who would remain with the joy of their mother, which would bring their father home and reunite the family at long last. Each brother, despite all of his shortcomings, knew the deep seeded pain felt in each life's losses, and each was willing to step into the realm of hell to end it for the one that would stay behind. He could not bring himself, however, to hurt the other brother by leaving him after all they had shared together through their long journeys into the shadows and back.

There was no painless solution.

Without words, one of the brothers stepped forward and walked towards the dark man. He spoke only two words, but they were two words that changed his life for eternity: "Take me."

The man did not hesitate long. He was there for business and that is all he had. He smiled towards the remaining brother who, realizing what was going to occur, lunged for his brother to hold him back. The dark man, using only the power of his mind, held the man who would stay behind, leaving him to bellow and scream, pleading for his sibling to return, not to make a rash decision. He struggled against the invisible bonds that held him fast and far, and he screamed until he could not longer hear anything but the echo of his own voice inside his head.

Both of the young men were crying, one in a fervent rage to bring his sibling who had reunited with not so long ago, back to him, and the other silently, with slow tears dribbling over his cheeks, not wanting to hear his brother crying behind him, begging him to come back. _This is for you,_ he silently thought.

Just before the brother and the god disappeared in a blinding flash of light, leaving behind the other sibling in his own misery and fear, waiting for the arrival of their mother, the young man turned around and faced his earthbound brother. Their eyes connected and tears glazed over both sets of trembling eyes. They had hated each other, fought with each other, but above all, they were brothers, they were a family, and they would sacrifice for the other. A strong ripple of pain passed through each sibling's heart, knowing that after such a short time together, they would be torn apart forever. The prospect of their mother soothed the pain, but only for an instant, as nothing could compare to his brother. The departing brother mustered a smile, more for the sake of his grief torn sibling, and he whispered ever so faintly, whispered his last words in the flesh, and whispered the words he would be remembered by: "Make sure to tell Mom 'hi' for me, okay?"

End


End file.
